Leaders: Dangerous drinking | Donald Trump

Picture: Getty

Revelations that hundreds of children of primary school age in the UK are being referred to specialist drug and alcohol treatment services are truly shocking.

These figures testify to the insidious and appalling damage that abuse can wreak in thousands of homes.

Drugs are a scourge; they take over and destroy lives. To deliver a consistent message, so-called legal highs and cannabis have to be included in that warning, despite the recent decriminalisation in some countries and some parts of the United States.

The major inconsistency in all this, of course, is alcohol, a drug that causes a huge amount of damage and at a huge cost to society, but one that is part of our culture, albeit a corrosive part of it.

The figures are bleak and baleful confirmation that alcohol problems do not only affect the person drinking, but also every-one around them, including family, friends and colleagues. And the impact can be especially difficult for children.

Separate research has indicated that one in five children across the UK is currently living with a parent who drinks a dangerous amount. People can be affected by their parent’s drink problem and the apparent “normality” of heavy and prolonged drinking in the home. Family life comes to revolve round alcohol – its purchase, consumption and consequences. Children copy their parents and come to believe that such abuse is “normal” and that they too can participate. Thus are the seeds of this problem sown, and this problem often continues into adulthood.

Making matters worse is that the drink problem is often not talked about – still less admitted as a problem – and alcoholism becomes the family secret. Family members often collude with the alcoholic to keep the problem hidden from the outside world. Habitual drink abusers become well versed in the art of deception and the hiding of evidence.

Members of the wider family and neighbours do these abusive households no favours by failing to report problems and turning a blind eye. Vigilance is a vital first step in tackling this problem. Alcohol and drugs corrode behaviour and inflict a huge cost to individuals and to society across all of Scotland.

Breaking the cycle of abuse is paramount. And that requires constant and diligent commitment to a three-pronged approach: education (by nature a slow burn, but essential in every school and home), strict enforcement of licensing laws, and making alcohol more expensive. Unpopular though this course may be for those who drink moderately, it is a course we must now pursue with all speed.

Trump’s harrumph over

Turnberry, sited on one of the most beautiful stretches of the Ayrshire coast, is a golf resort renowned round the world. So news that Donald Trump has been successful in his bid to buy the complex will arouse hope and apprehension in equal measure. And some wry smiles.

No individual is likely to be more assiduous in raising the profile of Turnberry in the competitive world of golf than Mr Trump. But he comes with baggage considerably bulkier than a Jack Nicklaus set of clubs.

Barely three months ago the US property tycoon dropped further plans to invest in Scotland following a long-running dispute over a planned offshore wind farm which he claimed would spoil the view from his development at the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire.

In pursuit of his complaint he sent a blistering letter to Scotland’s First Minister and, when he lost the appeal, declared he would be focusing “all of our investment in Ireland”.

But just days after announcing a £12.4 million investment in County Clare, news emerged of a plan for nine wind turbines up to 126 metres high two miles to the south of the site.

Mr Trump’s mischievous opponents may sniff an opportunity to further torment the tycoon: that area of the Ayrshire coast has been zoned for wind turbines. But even with the final hurdles now cleared on the purchase negotiations, Mr Trump, who has obviously changed his mind about Scotland, owes it to this country and to its government to show contrition for his petulant huff over Menie.

Work on diplomatic bridge repair needs to take priority now that he is back investing here.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.